DAVID GOLDBLATT

This is a definitive history of global football.

The Olympics is the world's biggest sporting event - and it moves centre stage for London 2012. Yet the sports the world is familiar with - football, cricket, rugby - are either missing or have a token presence. This book offers the back story behind each Olympics sport and, by means of diagrams and prose, explains the rules and finer points. This is the one book on the Olympics you really do need. The Olympics is the world's biggest sporting event - and it moves centre stage for London 2012. Yet the sports the world is familiar with - football, cricket, rugby, baseball, motor sports - are either missing or have a token presence. In their place are games that most of us have not a clue how to play or to watch. Which is where this witty, insightful book comes into play, offering the back story behind each Olympics sport and, by means of fiendishly clever diagrams and prose, explaining the rules and finer points. Once you've read David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton's accounts, you'll be on tenterhooks to see whether the Danish or the Koreans triumph at handball, just what the Italian fencers are up to, and if Greco-Roman wrestling really is like a game of chess.

David Goldblatt is possibly the best football historian there has ever been Dominic Sandbrook David Goldblatt is the greatest British sportswriter of the 21st century Injury Time is an absolute classic James Montague author of The Billionaires Club and EngulfedFootball history and the state of the nation and why it mattersInjury Time is a sharp and thought provoking look at contemporary British society through the lens of football a society shaken by more than a decade of economic political and social upheaval whose causes and consequences have proved hard to grasp Set against the backdrop of Brexit Covid and today s polycrisis spanning economic decline war in Europe political unrest and climate change this book argues that football provides an unmatched vantage point for understanding the nation s state of affairs From grassroots clubs battling for survival to the rise and fall of Russian oligarchs in the sport the game s tragedies and triumphs echo the larger shifts shaping Britain With striking examples such as Marcus Rashford s anti hunger campaign and the uproar surrounding Gary Lineker s tweets Injury Time underscores football s central role in public conversation Football Goldblatt contends is the ultimate societal bellwether a refl

A Telegraph Best Book of 2025.A News Statesman Book of the Year 2025. David Goldblatt is possibly the best football historian there has ever been. Dominic SandbrookDavid Goldblatt is the greatest British sportswriter of the 21st century Injury Time is an absolute classic. James Montague, author of The Billionaires Club and Engulfed Football, history and the state of the nation and why it matters. Injury Time is a sharp and thought provoking look at contemporary British society through the lens of football; a society shaken by more than a decade of economic, political and social upheaval, whose causes and consequences have proved hard to grasp. Set against the backdrop of Brexit, Covid and todays polycrisis spanning economic decline, war in Europe, political unrest and climate change this book argues that football provides an unmatched vantage point for understanding the nations state of affairs. From grassroots clubs battling for survival to the rise and fall of Russian oligarchs in the sport, the games tragedies and triumphs echo the larger shifts shaping Britain. With striking examples such as Marcus Rashfords anti-hunger campaign and the uproar surrounding Gary Linekers tweets, Injury Time underscores footballs central role in public conversation. Football, Goldblatt contends, is the ultimate societal bellwether a reflection of Britains virtues and flaws alike.

Futebol Nation by David Goldblatt - a thriling history of Brazil through its sporting passionFrom the genius of Pelé to corruption and civil unrest, no nation has so closely aligned its national identity with playing and watching football as Brazil. Football is regarded as a thing of joy, its yellow shirts a delightful amalgam of sport and art, entwined with its cultures of music and religion. This is true, but there is another side to the story too. The corruption of Brazils football authorities is characteristic of its society as a whole; some of its biggest tournaments have recently been played amidst the largest protests Brazil has ever seen. From the acclaimed author of the classic football history The Ball is Round, this book is the whole story: the players, the fans, the corruption, the passion. It will be enjoyed by readers of I am the Secret Footballer, The Numbers Game, Why England Lose and fans of football around the world.David Goldblatt was born in London in 1965 and is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspurs and Bristol Rovers. He teaches sociology at Bristol University, reviews sports books for the TLS, and for some years wrote the Sporting Life column in Prospect magazine.A tour de force of brilliant writing, historical colour and sporting vignetteObserver on The Ball is Round

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.From the ancient Greeks to todays festival of sponsors this is the definitive sporting, social and political history of the Olympic Games.An excellent, pacy, anecdote-studded history of the modern Games The TimesThe Olympic Games have become the greatest show on earth. But how was such a ritual invented? Why did it prosper and how has it been so utterly transformed?In The Games, sports historian David Goldblatt takes on a breathtakingly ambitious search for the answers and brilliantly unravels the complex strands of this history.Beginning with the Olympics as a sporting side show at the great Worlds Fairs of the Belle Epoque and its transformation into a global media spectacular, care of Hollywood and the Nazi party. The Games shows how sport and the Olympics had been a battlefield during the Cold War, a defining moment for social and economic change in host cities and countries, and a theatre of resistance for women and athletes of colour once excluded from the show.Filled with stories from over a century of Olympic competition this amazingly researched history captures the excitement of sporting brilliance and the kaleidoscopic experience of the Games. It shows us how this sporting spectacle has come to reflect the world we hope to inhabit and the one we actually live in.

A must-read ahead of the biggest World Cup yet, this is a definitive exploration of the politics and economics of football.David Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been - Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday TimesIn the twenty-first century football is first. First among sports themselves, but it now commands the allegiance, interest and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon. In the three most populous nations on the earth China, India and the United States where just twenty years ago football existed on the periphery of society it has now arrived for good. Nations, peoples and neighbourhoods across the globe imagine and invent themselves through playing and following the game.In The Age of Football, David Goldblatt charts footballs global cultural ascent, its economic transformation and deep politicization, taking in prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivias Evo Morales and Turkeys Recep Erdogan, Chinas declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, and the FIFA corruption scandal.Following the intersection of the game with money, power and identity, like no sports historian before, Goldblatts sweeping story is remarkable in its scope, breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, and is a brilliantly original perspective of the twenty-first century. It is the account of how football has come to define every facet of our social, economic and cultural lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.

WINNER of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2015In the last two decades football in Britain has made the transition from a peripheral dying sport to the very centre of our popular culture, from an economic basket-case to a booming entertainment industry. What does it mean when football becomes so central to our private and political lives? Has it enriched us or impoverished us?In this sparkling book David Goldblatt argues that no social phenomenon tracks the momentous economic, social and political changes of the post-Thatcherite era in a more illuminating manner than football, and no cultural practice sheds more light on the aspirations and attitudes of our long boom and now calamitous bust. A must-read for the thinking football fan, The Game of Our Lives will appeal to readers of Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby and Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson. It will also be relished by readers of British social history such as Austerity Britain by David Kynaston. Brilliantly incisive. Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been. Goldblatts book could hardly be more impressiveSunday Times

THE DEFINITIVE, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BOOK ABOUT FOOTBALLFootball conquered the world with its capacity to astonish, and this is its definitive historyThe IndependentThere may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final. In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of footballs rise from chaotic folk ritual to the worlds most popular sport. The Ball Is Round illuminates footballs role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game. ___________________________________Goldblattwrites with authority, humour, and passion, not least in the accounts of famous or significant matches scattered throughout the bookTimes Literary SupplementSince it became a worldwide phenomenon, nobody has attempted to write an overall history of the game. Now David Goldblatts stunning book will be the measure against which all other such volumes are judgedThe GuardianGoldblatts magnum opus . . . Anyone with a brain and an interest in football will enjoy this bookThe Daily Telegraph (London)